The present disclosure relates generally to a compact mirror arrangement for, and a method of, capturing return light from a target, such as a bar code symbol, and also for illuminating the target, through a horizontal window of a point-of-transaction workstation, especially a dual window, bioptical workstation.
It is known to use solid-state imagers in single or dual window, point-of-transaction workstations to electro-optically read, by image capture, symbol targets, such as one- or two-dimensional bar code symbols, and/or to image document targets, such as receipts, prescriptions, driver's licenses, etc., the targets being associated with products to be identified and processed, e.g., purchased, at the workstation provided at a countertop of a checkout stand in supermarkets, warehouse clubs, department stores, and other kinds of retailers. The products are typically slid or moved by a user across, or presented to and momentarily held steady at a central region of, a generally horizontal window that is mounted in a horizontal platform and that faces upwardly above the countertop, and/or a generally vertical or upright window that is mounted in a raised vertical tower and that faces the user. The known workstations utilize a plurality of illuminating assemblies to illuminate the target with bright, pulsed illumination light, and multiple mirror arrangements to direct return illumination light from the products to one or more imagers along three or more, asymmetrical fields of view, or subfields, that pass through the windows along different directions in order to provide a full coverage scan zone that extends above the horizontal window and in front of the upright window as close as possible to the countertop, and extends sufficiently high above the countertop, and extends as wide as possible across the width of the countertop, to enable reliable reading of a target that could be positioned anywhere on all six sides of a three-dimensional product. The scan zone projects into space away from the windows and grows in volume rapidly in order to cover targets on products that are positioned not only on the windows, but also at working distances therefrom.
As advantageous as such known workstations have been, their multiple mirror arrangements, especially those associated with their horizontal windows, have many mirrors, each of which has to be manufactured, assembled and adjusted in position, and as a result, their multiple mirror arrangements are costly in manufacture and assembly, and occupy a relatively large volume of space, thereby causing their platforms to be correspondingly large in depth and bulky and not well suited to fit in cramped venues. Moreover, the bright, pulsed illumination light from one illuminating assembly can sometimes reflect off the mirrors and be directed towards the user's eyes, thereby constituting a repetitive source of annoyance that is disturbing to the user, or even sometimes to nearby customers.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to reduce the number of mirrors to be manufactured, assembled and adjusted in such workstations, to configure the mirror arrangements associated with the horizontal windows to be more compact in volume and to be less expensive in cost, to configure the horizontal platforms to take up less space, and to reduce, if not prevent, illumination light from disturbing users and customers, all without sacrificing the size of the full coverage scan zones and the performance of the workstations.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions and locations of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of embodiments of the present invention.
The arrangement and method components have been represented where appropriate by conventional symbols in the drawings, showing only those specific details that are pertinent to understanding the embodiments of the present invention so as not to obscure the disclosure with details that will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of the description herein.